Thirteen
by x Varda x
Summary: The nightmares are all too real for Rodney. Gen.


**Title:** Thirteen  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG13/12/T  
><strong>Words:<strong> 2552  
><strong>Summary:<strong> The nightmares are all too real for Rodney. Gen.

**Notes:** Set in S3 between Progeny and Sunday. Written for LiveJournal's Stargateland Spooky Tropes challenge. Also written for my chosen LiveJournal Spook Me prompt (at end of fic)

1.  
>Giant lemons chased Rodney down the corridors of Atlantis. "Lemons... with legs?" he panted. "What the hell?"<p>

He made it to his quarters and the door closed before citrus death could enter his living space. Bending at the waist, he gasped for breath. His gene very kindly turned on the lights just in time for him to see a giant lemon lurch and envelop him, and then he stopped breathing entirely.

2.  
>The Creature from P3R-586 was all fur and claws and teeth; six legs, two heads and a roar that shook the leaves off the trees around it and echoed into the distance. But Rodney thought they had outrun the thing, hadn't they? As he ran, he felt something latch onto his vest and tug him backwards. His yelp was lost in the shock as he was surrounded by thick, smelly fur, then sharp talons cut through his flesh and blood flew everywhere.<p>

3.  
>Over and over again, Rodney relived the moment when he realised he'd made a big mistake. It was such a huge error that he was being sent to the SGC's freezer, Siberia - a place far far away from where they could keep him out of sight and mind. He would never be warm again or ever have a chance to make great discoveries. Siberia was his eternal prison.<p>

4.  
>"Come on, McKay! Can't you fly this thing in a straight line?" John asked from the co-pilot's chair.<p>

"I'm trying," Rodney ground out.

Rodney had never been bad at anything involving his mind, but the neural interface really didn't like him. It kept following his train of thought, which tended to go off at a tangent, and the puddle jumper took the same route.

Four near misses and a trip much longer than it should've been, and Rodney landed the jumper back in the bay.

John stood at the edge of the ramp looking angry as Rodney left the ship. "That was your twentieth and final lesson. You can't fly it, so I can't sign you off."

Rodney's heart sank.

"I'm not upset with you," John said coolly. "But I _am_disappointed."

5.  
>Elizabeth sat opposite Rodney in her office. She had her 'business' face on as she said, "I'm replacing you with Dr. Kavanagh."<p>

"You can't be serious?" Rodney replied indignantly. "I didn't check the date today, but I seem to remember that yesterday wasn't the last day of March."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm deadly serious, Dr. McKay." She looked at her computer screen on the desk before her. "There have been complaints about a number of things. Your... people skills being at the forefront."

Rodney huffed.

"Kavanagh is the recommended choice, both by me and the IOA. You'll have more time for your other duties."

"This is outrageous! Have you even seen the other man's work or spoken to him lately?"

Elizabeth said, "You'll report to Dr. Kavanagh every day with your progress."

6.  
>Teyla and Ronon sparred with Rodney in the Lantean gym. Teyla had her sticks and Ronon had a wooden sword.<p>

"But I don't have a weapon," Rodney said from where he stood between them in his crumpled white karate suit and incorrectly tied belt.

"Then get one," Ronon replied with a growl.

Ronon and Teyla moved in for the kill. Rodney tried to grab one of the sticks, but it hit his hand very hard and he couldn't do it. "Ow!" he cried as he got hit all over his body in a flurry of blows from both of them.

John stood watching in the corner with Elizabeth. They both smiled and sometimes chuckled when Rodney got hit.

7.  
>Kolya approached Rodney with a blank face and a long, sharp knife in his hand. The shiny silver blade caught the overhead light and reflected it into Rodney's eyes. He gulped nervously, but was backed up against a wall and unable to get away.<p>

John ran into the control room and shot Kolya in the back.

The Genii kept on coming, unfazed by the bullets. John couldn't save Rodney, not this time, so he closed his eyes and soon felt the painful bite of cold steel in his arm.

8.  
>Rodney lay in bed gasping and shaking as a red woman crouched over him. She sat on his chest, crushing the air from his lungs as her hands enclosed his head so tightly he thought she might burst it like a watermelon.<p>

Rodney couldn't breathe through the intense fear and his consciousness soon fled in gut wrenching terror.

9.  
>Rodney didn't fall off the strange boat on P2A-492, he was pushed. He almost suspected his team, although he'd told everyone on the vessel about his morbid fear of the whales they had seen flipping their fins in the distance.<p>

He tread water and tried not to panic while the boat came about to retrieve him.

"Nice whales..." he sang, swallowing water and choking a little. "No Rodney-snack today."

There was a ripple nearby that wasn't a normal wave in the sea. Then a geyser of water shot up from the blowhole of the whale as it swam through the water heading straight for Rodney.

In his panic, he went under, and that was the last thing he knew.

10.  
>Relentless Replicators walked towards Rodney like zombies. Scary zombies, that couldn't be stopped with a mere bullet to the brain. He shot at them over and over again with the Anti-Replicator Gun, but he might as well have been flashing a torch at them for all the good it did.<p>

The first one reached him and grabbed his neck, choking the life out of him. Another one stuck its hand in his forehead and the reality he once knew never existed again for him.

11.  
>Space vampires held Rodney cocooned on their ship. He was bound and helpless where the organic tendrils wrapped around his body and held him tightly. Every now and then, one of the long haired white Wraith would come over and give him a sharp toothed grin just before it planted a hand on his chest and sucked a little more life from him, making him scream. Then it stopped and walked away, leaving him panting from the torture and dreading the next session.<p>

"You have killed so many of our kind," the Wraith's words echoed in Rodney's head, even now. "Killing you in moments would be too good for you. I will take your life from you eventually, but not before I am satisfied. You can beg for death all you like, but it will not come for a very long time."

12.  
>Rodney couldn't save his team. They all died because of him. He couldn't get his mind around the new technology fast enough to prevent it. He failed and they paid for it with their lives and all he had left was his useless single life, the rest of which would be spent filled with guilt.<p>

13.  
>Rodney woke up in his bed with the covers twisted around his middle. He groaned as his heart hammered rapidly. There was a sharp twinge of pain in his chest and he gasped.<p>

"Thirteen times," he muttered as the lights to come on, but not so bright that he was blinded. "How many more nights have to be interrupted by these ridiculous nightmares?"

He stopped still with his eyes wide when he noticed a strange red tint to the light in his quarters. It faded as the lights grew brighter and he reluctantly dismissed it as a side-effect of the Ancient lightbulbs.

He untangled himself and winced as his heart did something unpleasant. Sitting up, his hand hovered over the radio earpiece on his bedside table, while he pressed his other hand against his chest. He sighed as the pain faded and merely hooked the radio around his ear and got up.

"3am. Great." he said. "Too early to get up properly. Too late to find anyone other than the vampires of Atlantis awake." He shuddered, got dressed and left the room.

xxx

"Are you worried about anything, Rodney?"

"That's the stupidest question I've ever heard," he barked.

Heightmeyer looked back at him with lips so thin, they could barely be seen. "I mean, more than usual. Has something changed recently that the nightmares have increased so that you had to come to me?"

Since arriving on Atlantis and being exposed to an ever increasing number of dangers with all the associated terror, Rodney had had his fair share of nightmares. Sometimes he woke up in the lab with his face stuck to a computer keyboard. Sometimes he even made it to his bed to find the covers twisted around his legs, but his heart always pounded heavily in his chest and his head buzzed in fright each time it happened.

"No," he replied and rubbed his face tiredly.

xxx

"A red mist?" Carson said as he examined the screens around the scanner where Rodney lay.

"Yes. I've seen it a few times recently. It takes a few seconds to recover from the nightmares when I wake up, but sometimes the city can sense that I want the lights on before I even instruct it."

Carson hummed distractedly as he rotated the image.

"That's when I've seen it in my quarters. I thought it was just a trick of the lighting, but I tested it again earlier and it's not doing it now."

"Have you been eating properly?"

Rodney frowned. "Yes."

"These scans show that your blood sugar level is getting low and there are several other imbalances here that could make you ill if they get much worse."

As always, when Rodney was told that there was something physically wrong with him, he felt very small and vulnerable lying there on the bed. "Nothing's changed in my routine."

"Getting enough sleep?"

Rodney rolled his eyes.

Carson turned back to him. "I want to keep you in overnight for observation."

"But..."

"Just to make absolutely certain that this imbalance doesn't have any dangerous side effects and to give me more time to analyse these scan results."

xxx

John dreamt of guns and flying. He flapped his magnificent white wings and soared high as he shot at the people on the ground below. They tried to get him, but couldn't and he did a little victory loop de loop.

There was a sudden loud snort from beneath him, but when he looked, there was nothing there. "Huh? Oh..."

John woke up with a start and nearly fell out of his chair. He had a vague feeling that there had been a sound in the waking world that jolted him so quickly from sleep. He glanced at the bed in front of him where Rodney was twitching and twisting up the thin bedsheet around himself. He pushed out a breath and the next one came in his nose with a loud sniffling snort.

"Jeez, McKay," John said under his breath. "Are you a pig now?" John started to get more concerned when Rodney didn't wake up when he stood up and tried to rouse the man. "That can't be good."

There was a strange darkness coming from Rodney's chest and John made the infirmary lights brighten. Then he noticed that the shadow had a red tint to it - just as Rodney had described. He frowned and was about to call for help, when the mist coalesced into a female looking form. But the... whatever it was, wasn't human by a long shot. It kept the lower half of itself on Rodney's chest, while he writhed and moaned, then enveloped his head.

"Get away from him!" John shouted, but the creature ignored him.

Rodney's eyes opened at the shouting and then went wide as he stared up into the face of his attacker.

John drew his gun and fired a couple of shots at the creature, but they went straight through and into the wall behind Rodney. The thing hissed and Rodney winced.

John approached. "I said, leave him alone!" He struck out at the red creature with his fists, but there was no contact with anything.

Rodney continued to stare at the creature over him and John had an idea. "Rodney, look at me!"

The scientist didn't move.

John straightened his face. "I said look at me, that's an order," he said in his best Lieutenant Colonel voice.

Rodney blinked, then moved his head to one side and John felt his insides clench when their eyes met. John knew that Rodney tended to be a fearful man. Although Rodney was still able to function, he always seemed to be in a panic or terrified about something, but what he saw was a new level of fear that John had never seen before.

All that John could do was say, "It's alright, Rodney, I'm here."

Some of the fear left Rodney's face, then the rest started to fade away too as he kept looking at John. The creature screeched and the sound seemed to come from somewhere else, not quite in the same room as them.

Rodney frowned angrily, then directed his glare at the creature. She screeched at him and began to fade. "Leave me..." Rodney closed his eyes tightly, then reopened them with a fierce glare at her. "Leave me alone!"

With a final screech, she drifted up away from him and separated from his chest, then vanished into the air.

Rodney gave John a quick smile, then his eyes rolled up and he lost consciousness. Medical staff swarmed in when John gave them the all clear, then he slumped down in the chair he had vacated a few eventful minutes before.

xxx

"It was something he picked up on the planet we visited a couple of weeks ago," John briefed Elizabeth as they stood beside Rodney's bed in the infirmary a couple of days later.

Rodney waved his hands restlessly. "I traced the nightmares back to then."

"And you're absolutely sure that the creature's now gone?" Elizabeth asked.

John grimaced, "Vanished in a puff of red smoke."

"Aye," Carson said from where he'd be watching. "I've just analysed Rodney's latest bloodwork and it's back to normal." Carson paused to look at his scowling patient fondly. "Well, as normal as he ever was."

"Thank you so much for that," came Rodney's sarcastic reply. "And I feel so much better knowing that a misty red fear feeder was nesting in my chest for the past couple of weeks."

"Must've really had a feast on you, McKay," John said with a smirk. "Is there anything you're _not_afraid of?"

Rodney huffed and folded his arms. "Plenty."

Carson said, "Food perhaps?"

Rodney's face softened a little at the mention of food. Then he grimaced, "Citrus."

"I'm discharging you, Rodney. Light duties for the next few days. At the first sign of any nightmares..."

"Yadda yadda, I know," Rodney said as he pushed the covers back and swung his legs over the side of the bed, "...come back to the infimary so you can all watch me being fed on again."

Elizabeth thanked Carson and left. And a few minutes later Rodney was dressed and went with John to the mess hall to meet up with Teyla and Ronon.

"It's nice being able to have a full night of uninterrupted sleep for once," Rodney said.

"I bet it is."

Fin

**Endnotes:** Fic was partially influenced by the Polymorph from Red Dwarf, that changes forms to elicit a specific emotion in its victims, which it then sucks out. It's also almost a succubus. The **Spook Me** prompt I chose was shapeshifter.


End file.
